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Energy Prices State by State

As companies continues to grapple with high-density computing, energy pricing has become a significant factor in data center site location decsions. Which state has the cheapest power? For industrial customers the answer is Idaho, according to The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which keeps monthly data for retail electric pricing. The EIA numbers represent state-wide averages, and individual utilities within each state may have higher or lower rates than the average shown here. We’ve put together a chart showing rate information for February 2007, and will update this periodically.

We’ve included the average price in February 2006 for each state, which shows whether prices have been trending higher or lower over the most recent 12-month period. Click Read More for the data.

One of the states with the strongest downward trend is Oklahoma, where Google just located a major data center project. The strongest upward trend was in Maine, which already has the third-highest state average, topped only by Hawaii and Massachusetts.

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About the Author

Rich Miller is the founder and editor at large of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.

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